Birmingham Rotary packs 'Gleaners Grocery Boxes' on MLK Day

The Birmingham Rotary Club helped sort more than 8,800 pounds of food at the Gleaners Distribution Center in Pontiac. The center helps provide meals to over 500 agencies and food shelters in southeast Michigan.(Photo: Steven Volk | Birmingham Rotary)

They're called Gleaners Grocery Boxes, and to thousands of families across southeast Michigan they're a lifesaver.

"They're basically boxes of mixed, nonperishable food items that have a variety of things you might find in a household pantry," said Anne Schenk, vice president of advancement for the Gleaners Community Food Bank.

Gleaners provides the food boxes to over 500 different charitable organizations, soup kitchens and shelters. Those agencies serve about 426,000 individuals.

On Monday, members of the Birmingham Rotary Club celebrated Martin Luther King Day by sorting out over 8,800 pounds of grocery products at the Gleaners Distribution Center in Pontiac. They essentially packed enough food for 7,200 meals.

Rotarian John Mucha said the group has been volunteering at Gleaners for at least 10 years.

"We don't want to be a group that simply writes checks," said Mucha. "Although we do support a number of charitable causes with grants, we want to be hands-on. The other part of volunteering at Gleaners is you're working shoulder-to-shoulder with other Rotarians, so you're fostering a sense of camaraderie and fraternity among the members."

Schenk said the Rotary Club and other volunteers at the distribution center are key to the program's success.

"We couldn't do this without volunteers – it's that simple," she said. "We need people to inspect the packages and pack the food into the boxes for the local food pantries. If we had to pay people to do this, there's no way we could reach this many people."

And it's still not enough. Schenk said studies indicate there about 700,000 individuals in southeast Michigan that aren't getting enough food.

"So there's still a big gap," she said. "And we're hearing from our pantry partners that they haven't seen a decrease even though the economy has improved … people are working, but they're not enjoying the same wages and benefits so they have to make tough choices."

The distribution center in Pontiac relies on about 48,000 volunteers each year.

"It's a fun, rewarding experience," Mucha said. "We're all professionals doing whatever it takes to give back a little."

Anyone interested in volunteering at the distribution center can visit the Gleaners website at www.gcfb.org.